Ilse Witch

15

Hunkered down in the sprawling, treacherous tangle of the Wilderun, Grimpen Ward was ablaze with light and suffused with sound. Patrons of the ale houses and pleasure dens overflowed into the dirt streets, celebrating nothing, as lost to themselves as to those who had once known them. Grimpen Ward was the last rung on the ladder down, a melting pot for those who had no other place to go. Inquiries of strangers were as apt to get your purse stolen or your throat cut as your questions answered, fights broke out spontaneously and for no particular reason, and the only rule of behavior that mattered was to keep your nose out of what didn’t concern you.

Even Hunter Predd, a veteran of countless reckonings and narrow escapes, was wary of those who lived in Grimpen Ward.

Once, Grimpen Ward had been a sleepy village catering to trappers and hunters seeking game within the vast and little explored expanse of the Wilderun. Too remote and isolated to attract any other form of commerce, it had subsisted as an outpost for many years. But there was little money to be made in hunting game and much to be made in gambling, and slowly the nature of the village began to change. The Elves shunned it, but Southlanders and Rovers found that its location suited their needs perfectly. Men and women seeking escape from their past, from pursuers who would not let them be, and from failed dreams and constant disappointment; men and women who could not live under the constraints of rules that governed elsewhere and who needed the freedom that came with knowing that being quickest and strongest was all that mattered; and men and women who had lost everything and were hoping to find a way to begin anew without having to be anything but clever and immoral; eventually all such found their way to Grimpen Ward. Some stayed only a short time and moved on. Some stayed longer. If they failed to stay alive, they stayed forever.

In daylight, it was a squalid, sleepy village of clapboard buildings and sheds, of rutted dirt roads and shadowed alleyways, and of a populace that remained inside and slept, waiting for nightfall. The forests of the Wilderun closed it about, ancient trees and choking scrub, and it was always on the verge of being swallowed completely. Nothing of what it was seemed permanent, as if everything had been thrown together on a whim, perhaps within a few desperate days, and might be torn down again by the end of the week. Its populace cared nothing for the town, only for what the town had to offer. There was a sullen, angry cast to Grimpen Ward that suggested a caged and malnourished animal waiting for a chance to break free.

Hunter Predd walked its streets cautiously, staying back from the light, keeping clear of the knots of people crowded about the doorways and porches of the public houses. Because he was a Wing Rider, he preferred open spaces. Because he was a sensible man who had been to Grimpen Ward and places like it before, he knew what to expect.

He slowed and then stopped at the entrance of an alley where three men were beating another with clubs, already pulling at his clothes, searching for his purse. The man was pleading with them not to kill him. There was blood on his face and hands. One of his attackers looked over at Hunter Predd, feral eyes bright and hard, assessing his potential as an adversary. The Wing Rider did as he had been instructed. He held the other’s gaze for a moment to demonstrate he was not afraid, then turned aside and walked on.

Grimpen Ward was not a place for the faint of heart or those seeking to redress the wrongs of the world. Neither could survive in the claustrophobic atmosphere of this breeding ground of cruelty and rage. Here, everyone was either prey to or hunter of someone else, and there was no middle ground. Hunter Predd felt the pall of hopelessness and despondency that shrouded the village, and he was sickened by it.

He moved out of the central section of the village, away from the brighter lights and louder noises, and entered a cluster of hovels and shacks occupied by those who had fallen into a twilight existence of drug-induced escape. The beings who lived here never emerged from their private, self-indulgent worlds, from the places they had created for themselves. He could smell the chemicals burning on the air as he passed through. He could smell the sweat and excrement. Everything they needed to escape life was free, once they forfeited everything they had.

He turned up a pathway that disappeared back into the trees, glanced about cautiously to be certain he had not been followed, and proceeded into the shadows. The trail wound back a short distance to a cabin set within a small grove of ash and cherry. The cabin was neat and well tended with flower boxes hung from the windows and a garden out back. It was quiet, an oasis of calm amid the tumult. A light burned in the front window. The Wing Rider walked to the door, stood quietly for a moment listening, and then knocked.

The woman who opened the door was heavy and flat-faced, her hair cropped short and graying, her body shapeless. She was of indeterminate age, as if she had passed out of childhood sometime back and would not change her look again until she was very old. She regarded Hunter Predd without interest, as if he were just another of the lost souls she encountered every day.

“I’ve got no more rooms to let. Try somewhere else.”

He shook his head. “I’m not looking for a room. I’m looking for a woman called the Addershag.”

She snorted. “You’ve come too late for that. She’s been dead these past five years. News travels slowly where you come from, I guess.”

“You know this to be so? Is she really dead?”

“As dead as yesterday. I buried her out back, six feet down, standing upright so she could greet those who tried to dig her up.” She smirked. “Want to give it a try?”

He ignored the challenge. “You were her apprentice?”

The woman laughed, her face twisting. “Not hardly. I was her servant woman and the caretaker of her house. I hadn’t the stomach for what she did. But I served her well and she rewarded me in kind. You knew her, did you?”

“Only by reputation. A powerful seer. A worker of magic. Few would dare to challenge her. None, I think, even now that she is dead and buried.”

“Only fools and desperate men.” The woman glanced out at the village lights and shook her head. “They come here still, now and then. I’ve buried a few, when they didn’t listen to me about letting her be. But I haven’t her power or abilities. I just do what I was brought here to do, looking after things, taking care. The house and what’s in it are mine now. But I keep them for her.”

She stared at him, waiting.

“Who reads the future of those in Grimpen Ward now that she is gone?” he asked.

“Pretenders and charlatans. No-talent thieves who would steal you blind and send you to your death pretending it was something else entirely. They moved in the moment she was gone, laying claim to what she was, to what she could do.” The woman spit into the earth. “They’ll all be found out and burned alive for it.”

Hunter Predd hesitated. He would have to be careful here. This woman was protective of her legacy and not inclined to help. But he needed what she could give him.

“No one could replace the Addershag,” he agreed soberly. “Unless she chose someone herself. Did she ever train an apprentice?”

For a long moment, the woman just looked at him, suspicion mirrored in her sharp eyes. She brushed roughly at her ragged hair. “Who are you?”

“An emissary,” he said truthfully. “But the man who sent me knew your mistress well and shared her passion for magic and secrets. He, too, has lived a long time.”

Her features scrunched up like crumpled paper, and she folded her heavy arms before her defensively. “Is he here?”

“Close by. He prefers not to be seen.”

She nodded. “I know of whom you speak. But name him anyway if you wish me to believe you are his man.”

The Wing Rider nodded. “He is called Walker.”

“Hah!” Her eyes were bright with glee. “Even the vaunted Druid needed her help from time to time! That was how powerful she was, how well regarded!” There was triumph and satisfaction in her voice. “She might have been one of his order, had she wanted it. But she was never inclined to be anything other than a seer.”

“Is there, then,” he pressed gently, “another he might turn to, now that she is gone?”

The silence pressed in about them as she stood studying him anew, thinking the matter over. She knew something, but was not inclined to share it. He waited patiently on her.

“One,” the woman said finally, but spoke the word as if it left a bitter taste in her mouth. “One only. But she was not suitable. She was flawed in character and made waste of her talent. My mistress gave her every chance to be strong, and each time the girl failed. Finally, she left.”

“A girl,” Hunter Predd repeated carefully.

“Very young when she was here. Still a child. But old even then. Like she was already grown inside her child’s body. Intense and secretive, which was to her credit, but passionate, as well, which was not. Very powerful in her talent. She could see the future clearly, could mark its progress and read its signs.” The woman spat once more, her voice suddenly weary. “So gifted. More than just a seer. That was her undoing.”

The Wing Rider was confused. “What do you mean?”

The woman glared and shook her head. “There’s no reason for me to talk about it. If you’re so curious to know, ask her yourself. Ryer Ord Star is her name. She lives nearby. I can give you the directions. Do you want them or not?”

Hunter Predd took the directions she had offered and thanked her for her help. In return she gave him a look that suggested both pity and disdain. He had barely turned away before she had closed the cottage door behind her.

It felt empty and silent in the woods where Walker waited outside Grimpen Ward for Hunter Predd’s return. Nothing moved in the darkness. No sound came from the gloom. He waited patiently, but reluctantly, uncomfortable with leaving the search for the Addershag to the Wing Rider. It wasn’t that he thought Hunter Predd lacking in ability; in fact, he thought the Wing Rider better able than most. But he would have preferred to handle the matter himself. Contacting her was his idea. Seeking her out was something he knew how to do. But it was clear after the attack on Spanner Frew’s safehold that the Ilse Witch was determined to disrupt his efforts to retrace the route on the castaway’s map. It might have appeared it was the Federation who attacked the Rover settlement, but the Druid was convinced it was the Ilse Witch. Her spies must have caught sight of him in March Brume, and she had tracked him north to Spanner Frew. He had been lucky to elude her on the coast—luckier still to escape with his new airship intact. His Rover allies—Redden Alt Mer, Rue Meridian, and Spanner Frew—had flown him back to March Brume under cover of darkness and early morning mist, dropped him close to where he had left Hunter Predd, and then taken the airship in search of a crew. Once that crew was assembled, they would fly north to Arborlon, present themselves to the Elves and their new ruler, and await the Druid’s arrival.

All of which would take time, but Walker needed that time to accomplish two things. First, he must wait for Quentin Leah and Bek Rowe to find Truls Rohk, then reach Arborlon. Second, he must confer with a seer.

Why a seer? Hunter Predd had asked as they flew aboard Obsidian across the peaks of the Irrybis toward Grimpen Ward. What need did they have of a seer when Walker had already determined the purpose of the map? But their journey, Walker explained, was not so easily fathomed. Think of the Blue Divide as a depthless void and its islands as stepping-stones. The stability of those stones and the dark secrets of the waters all around were unknown. The Addershag might help them better understand their dangers. She could see some of what would threaten, what would lie in wait, what would steal away their lives if they weren’t prepared.

A seer could always provide insights, and no seer could provide more than the Addershag. Her abilities were renowned, and while she was dangerously unpredictable, she had never been antagonistic toward him. Once, long ago, she had helped his cousin, the Elf Queen Wren Elessedil, in her search for the missing Elven nation. It was the beginning of a connection he had carefully preserved. The Addershag had accommodated him now and again over the years, always with a grudging nod of admiration for the magic he could wield, always with a veiled hint of warning that her own was a match. She had been alive almost as long as he had, without the benefit of the Druid Sleep. He had no idea how she had managed this. She was both burdened and conflicted by her talent, and her life was a closely guarded secret.

Walker was not certain that Hunter Predd could succeed in persuading her to speak to him. She might well refuse. But it made sense to try. If he were to accomplish anything, he would have to do so both swiftly and surreptitiously.

Still, he chafed at the waiting and the uncertainty, and wished he could involve himself openly. Time was precious and success uncertain. The Addershag’s aid was vital. She would never agree to go with him, but she could open his eyes to the things he must know if he were to go himself. She would do so reluctantly and with carefully crafted words and confusing images, but even that would help.

A soft rustle broke his concentration, and he looked up as Hunter Predd materialized out of the night. The Wing Rider was alone.

“Did you find her?” the Druid asked at once.

Hunter Predd shook his head. “She’s been dead five years. The woman who looked after her told me so.”

Walker took a long, slow breath and exhaled. Disappointment welled up inside. A lie? No, a lie of that sort wouldn’t stand up for long. He should have known of the seer’s death, but he had shut himself away in Paranor for the better part of twenty years and much of what had happened in the world had passed him by completely.

The Wing Rider seated himself on a stump and drank from his water skin. “There is another possibility. Before she died, the seer took an apprentice.”

“An apprentice?” Walker frowned.

“A girl called Ryer Ord Star. Very talented, according to the woman I spoke with. But she had some sort of falling out with the Addershag. The woman hinted that it had something to do with a flaw in the girl’s character, but wouldn’t say more. She said I should ask her myself if I wanted to know. She lives not far from here.”

Walker thought it through quickly, weighing the possible risks and gains. Ryer Ord Star? He had never heard of her. Nor had he heard of the Addershag taking an apprentice. But then he hadn’t heard of the seer’s death either. What he knew or didn’t know of the larger world the past few years was not the most accurate measure of its truths. Better to find things out for himself before deciding what was or wasn’t so.

“Show me where she is,” he said.

Hunter Predd led him along a series of trails that circumvented the center of Grimpen Ward and avoided contact with its denizens. Darkness hid their passage, and the forests were a vast, impenetrable maze into which only they appeared to have ventured. Distant and removed, the sounds of the village rose up in tiny bursts within the cloaking silence, and slivers of light appeared and faded like predators’ eyes. But both Wing Rider and Druid knew how to walk undetected, and so their passing went unnoticed.

As he slipped through the dark tangle of the trees, Walker’s thoughts crowded in on him. His opportunities, he sensed, were slipping away. Too many he had depended on were dead—first Allardon Elessedil, then the castaway, and now the Addershag. Each represented information and assistance that would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace. The loss of the Addershag troubled him most. Could he manage without a seer’s visions in this endeavor? Allanon had done so, years earlier. But Walker was not chiseled from the same rock as his predecessor and made no claims to being his equal. He did what he could with what he had, mostly because he understood the need for doing so and not because he coveted the role into which he had been cast. Druids had traditionally desired their positions in the order. The mold had been broken with him.

He did not like thinking about who he was and how he had gotten to be that way. He did not like remembering the road he had been forced to travel to become what he had never intended to be. It was a bitter memory he carried and a difficult burden he bore. He had become a Druid because of Allanon’s machinations and Cogline’s urgings and in spite of his own considerable misgivings because, in the end, the need for his doing so was overwhelming. He had never thought to have anything to do with the Druids, never thought to be part of what they represented. He had grown up with a determination to stay apart from the legacy that had claimed so many of his family—the legacy of the Shannara. He had vowed to take his life in another direction.

But this is old news, he admonished himself even as he remembered the early fire of his doomed commitment to change what was fated. He supposed what pained him most, what weighed so heavily on his conscience, was not the breaking of the vow itself, which he could justify in light of the need it served, but the distance he had strayed from his appointed path in taking up his role. He had sworn he would not be a Druid like those others, like Allanon and Bremen before him. He would not cloak himself in subterfuge and secrecy. He would not manipulate others to achieve the ends he wished. He would not deceive and misdirect and conceal. He would be open and forthright and honest in his dealings. He would reveal what he knew and be truthful always.

He marveled at how naive he had been. How foolish. How terribly, fatally unrealistic.

Because life’s dictates did not allow for quick and easy distinctions between right and wrong or good and bad. Choices were made between shades of gray, and there was healing and harm to be weighed on both sides of each. As a result, his life had irrevocably followed the path of his predecessors, and in time he had taken on the very characteristics he had despised in them. He had assumed their mantles more completely than he had ever intended. Without ever wishing it to be so, he had become like them.

Because he could see the need for doing so.

Because he was then required to conduct himself accordingly.

Because, always and forever, the greater good must be considered in determining his course of action.

Tell that to Bek Rowe when this is over, he thought darkly. Tell it to that boy.

They emerged suddenly from the forest into a clearing in which a solitary cottage sat dark and silent. Far removed from everything, the cottage was poorly tended, its windows broken, its roof sagging, its yard choked with weeds, and its gardens bare. It looked as if no one had lived in it for some time, as if it had been abandoned and let run to ruin.

Then Walker saw the girl. She sat in the deep shadows of the porch stoop, perfectly still, at one with the darkness. When his eyes settled on her, she rose at once and stood watching his approach with Hunter Predd. Revealed more clearly by the light of moon and stars, she became older, less a girl, more a young woman. She wore her silver hair long and loose, and it fell about her pale, thin face in thick waves. She was rail thin, so insubstantial it seemed as if a strong wind might blow her away completely. She wore a plain wool dress cinched at her tiny waist by a strip of braided cloth. Sandals that were dusty and worn were strapped to her feet, and an odd collar of metal and leather was clasped about her neck.

He came up to her and stopped, Hunter Predd at his side. She never took her eyes from his, never even glanced at the Wing Rider.

“Are you the one they call Walker?” she asked in a soft, high voice.

Walker nodded. “I am called that.”

“I am Ryer Ord Star. I have been waiting for you.”

Walker studied her curiously. “How did you know I was coming?”

“I saw you in a dream. We were flying far out over the Blue Divide in an airship. There were dark clouds all about, and thunder rolled across the skies. But within the dark clouds there was something darker still, and I was warning you to beware of it.” She paused. “When I had that dream, I knew you would be coming here and that when you did, I would be going with you.”

Walker hesitated. “I never intended to ask you to come with me, only to ask—”

“But I must come with you!” she insisted quickly, her hands making sudden, anxious gestures to emphasize her need. “There have been other dreams of you as well, more as time has passed. I am meant to go with you across the Blue Divide. It is my destiny to do so!”

She spoke with such conviction that Walker was momentarily taken aback. He glanced at Hunter Predd. Even the Wing Rider’s rugged face reflected surprise.

“See?” she inquired, gesturing down at a canvas bag that sat at her feet. “I am packed and ready to leave with you. I dreamed of you again last night, of your coming here. The dream was so strong it even told me when you would arrive. Such dreams do not come often, even to seers. They almost never come in such numbers. When they do, they must not be ignored. We are bound, you and I—our destinies intertwined in a way we cannot sever. What happens to one, happens to both.”

She regarded him solemnly, her thin, pale face questioning, as if she could not understand his inability to accept her words. Walker, for his part, was confounded by her determination.

“You apprenticed with the Addershag?” he inquired, turning the conversation another way. “Why did you leave?”

The thin hands gestured anew. “She was suspicious of what I was. She was distrustful of how I employed my gifts. I am a seer, but I am an empath, too. Both talents are strong within me, and I find the need to use them too compelling to ignore. On occasion, I used the one to alter the other, and the Addershag would scream at me. ‘Never do anything to change what is to be!’ she would shrill. But if I can take away another’s pain through divining the future, where is the harm? I saw nothing wrong in doing so. Such pain can be better borne by me than by most.”

Walker stared. “You read the future, determine that something bad will happen, then use your empathic skill to lessen the hurt that will result?” Walker tried to envision it and failed. “How often can you do this?”

“Only now and then. I can only do a little. Sometimes, the use of my gifts is reversed. Sometimes I come to those already in pain, see the future that pain will create, and act to change it. It is an imperfect skill, and I do not use it carelessly. But the Addershag distrusted my empathic side altogether, believing it affected my seer’s eyes. Perhaps she was right. The two are equal parts of me, and I cannot separate them out. Does this bother you?”

Walker didn’t know. What bothered him most was his own confusion over what to do with the girl. She seemed convinced she was going with him, while he was still struggling with whether he should consult with her at all.

“You are unsure of me,” she said. He nodded, seeing no reason to dissemble. “You have no reason to fear that I cannot do what is needed. You are a Druid, and a Druid’s instincts never lie. Trust what yours tell you about me.”

She took a step forward. “An empath can give you peace you can find in no other way. Give me your hand.”

He did so without thinking, and she took it in her own. Her hands were soft and warm, and they barely enclosed his. She ran her fingers slowly over his palm and closed her eyes. “You are in such pain, Walker,” she said. A tingling began that turned slowly to sleepy calm, then to a sudden, soaring euphoria. “You feel yourself beset on all sides, your chances slipping away from you, your burden almost too much to bear. You hate yourself for what you are because you believe it is wrong for you to be so. You conceal truths that will affect the lives of those who—”

He jerked his hand free and stepped back, shocked at how easily she had penetrated his heart. Her eyes opened and lit on him anew. “I could free you of so much of your pain if you would let me,” she whispered.

“No,” he replied. He felt himself naked and revealed in a way he didn’t care for. “The pain is a reminder of who I am.”

At his side, Hunter Predd stirred uneasily, a witness to words he shouldn’t hear. But Walker could do nothing about it now.

“Listen to me,” Ryer Ord Star intoned softly. “Listen to what I have seen in my dreams. You will make your voyage across the Blue Divide in search of something precious—more to you than to any who go with you. Those who accompany you will be both brave and strong of heart, but only some will return. One will save your life. One will try to take it. One will love you unconditionally. One will hate you with unmatched passion. One will lead you astray. One will bring you back again. I have seen all this in my dreams, and I am meant to see more. I am meant to be your eyes, Walker. We are bound as one. Take me with you. You must.”

Her small voice was filled with such passion that it left the Druid transfixed. He thought momentarily of the Addershag, of how black and twisted she had always seemed, her words sharp edged and threatening, her voice come out of a dark pit into which no one should venture. How different, then, was Ryer Ord Star? He could see how difficult it must have been for the girl to train at the feet of someone so different from herself. She must have struggled in her training and would have lasted as long as she did because of her passion for her gift. He could see that in her. Trust your instincts, she had urged him. He always did. But his instincts here were mixed and his conclusions uncertain.

“Take me with you,” she repeated, and her words were a whisper of need.

He did not look at Hunter Predd. He knew what he would find in the Wing Rider’s eyes. He did not even look into his own heart, because he could already feel what was lurking there. He read, instead, her face, to be certain he had missed nothing, and he gave counsel to his mission and his need. A seer was required for the dark places into which he must venture. Ryer Ord Star had the gift, and there was no time to seek it in another. That she was not the Addershag was troubling. That she was not only willing, but eager to go with him, was a gift he could not afford to spurn.

“Pick up your bag, Ryer Ord Star,” he said softly. “We fly tonight to Arborlon.”